


Dark

by HorseCrazyWriter76



Series: NaNoWriMo November 2019 [10]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Abusive? Deceit, Definitely not a healthy dynamic at the very least, Gen, fragments, light and dark sides, not beta read or edited, unsympathetic Deceit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-21
Updated: 2019-11-21
Packaged: 2021-02-18 09:30:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21508885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HorseCrazyWriter76/pseuds/HorseCrazyWriter76
Summary: Do you understand now? I am done bleeding for you.Prompt: https://unpromptly.tumblr.com/post/186821917554/no-136-do-you-understand-now-they-hissed-in
Series: NaNoWriMo November 2019 [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1541089
Kudos: 21





	Dark

He wasn’t quite sure where he was. That was the first thing he didn’t know. The second thing he didn’t know was who he was. Two doors, how did he know words? What if his mind had been erased? What if someone was hiding behind them ready to jump out at him? He jumped as noises came from the lighter one. He threw himself against the grey wall, then jumped away from that to stand in the middle. What could be out there? What if it wasn’t stable? His breathing quickened.

“What if-”

“That can’t happen!”

“Mom and Dad will keep us safe!”

He calmed down a little bit, but had no intentions of seeing the source of the voices. What if they come through this door? He slowly opened the darker door, peering carefully around the room. Suddenly a phrase popped into his head: Fight or Flight. He was Fight-or-Flight.

“See? It’s Satan!”

“Satan doesn’t look like that.”

“Does to!”

“Does not!”

“Does to!”

“Does not!”

“Does to!”

“Does not!”

He ran for the door, but it had disappeared. He hid behind the couch, barely peeking over the sofa. Two people who looked a bit older than Thomas’ big brother, Shea, were arguing, and another person was laying on the couch. The person who was saying ‘does to’ was wearing a frilly black prince costume and the person who was saying ‘does not’ was wearing a clown outfit.

“Guys, stop it! There’s someone in here,” the person on the couch said. The two people stopped arguing and their gazes snapped over to the person on the couch.

“Who’s here?”

“Someone, I’m not a magician.”

The person in the clown outfit magically became a magician.

“Why can’t you just stick to an outfit like the rest of us, Deceit?”

“Hey! Dee Dee can dress however he wants!” the person in the prince outfit said, “Come out, come out, wherever you are, new person!”

The person on the couch leaned over the back and grabbed his hand. There was the worst cold feeling in the world, then he staggered to his feet, which were suddenly several times larger than they had been. The two people in front of him suddenly looked so much younger than they had before. 

“Who are you?”

“Paranoia,” the word bubbled to his lips easily, and he realized he wasn’t Fight-Or-Flight anymore, but this was infinitely worse. His hands shook and he saw every way that every object in the room could be used to kill or hurt him with.

“I’m not Lies and this isn’t Violence.”

“What did you do with Danger?”

“I am him. He wasn’t doing enough so I was made, then Danger touched me and we came together.”

“Turn back! I want Danger back!”

But Paranoia wasn’t listening. Because he had been Fight-or-Flight and had fused with Danger. Because Danger was inside him. Because he couldn’t Fight it. He fled up a flight of stairs and into a room that twisted as he ran into it, and he was calm. 

*****

“Paranoia,” Deceit said promptly, and the side he was addressing shot off of the couch cushion next to him and landed stiffly.

“Yes, sir?” he asked, his voice cracking. 

“Go get us our tea.”

“F-From the kitchen? With all the knives and the fires?”

“Where else would it be?” Anger built in his voice.

“Wouldn’t you ra-”

“No! We want tea.”

“Y-Yes, sir,” Paranoia replied, and scurried into the kitchen. He gave the block where the knives rested a wide berth and carefully checked the tea kettle for any signs of poisoning before turning on the stove and heating it. He turned off the stove, put the kettle onto the tray with the cups, checked the cups for any tampering, put the sugar pot on the tray, checked the sugar for any tampering, then checked to make sure the stove was off. He picked up the tray and hurried back in, carefully setting the tray on the table.

*****

There was blood. So much blood. He was surrounded by death. What had killed them? Were they coming for him next? Was he going to die?

“Paranoia, clean it up.”

His hands trembled more than normal as he dragged out the mop bucket and a mop and slowly dipped it in and turned it around. He swabbed it back and forth, back and forth, but it wasn’t getting clean. It was going to stay there forever. Everyone would be mad at him. Everyone would stare. He would be made fun of. He would be-

He woke up on the floor, blood thick in his hair. He swabbed the rest of the blood up and cleaned out the bucket before retreating to his room. The familiar white walls that would show any flaw or attempt at sabotage as clear as day while still being soft enough that he couldn’t hurt himself accidentally by running into it surrounded him. The blood disappeared from his hair as he breathed easier. His hands still held a nervous tremor.

*****

Paranoia sat stiffly on the couch. All four of them were sitting there, watching to see what the effects of the new medicine Thomas had started taking would be. Nothing was happening yet. What if it doesn’t work? What if they get mad that it doesn’t work? It’s supposed to work. What if they take him back? What if they take too much blood this time?

He suddenly keeled over as a horrible sensation of far too much warmth engulfed him and spat him out over the coffee table. He sat up slowly and saw Sin lean over to look at the other side, who was unconscious. There was a flash of light and Sin’s black prince outfit, which so far had only changed to show off more of his body as he changed from Violence to Sin, reverted to a twisted hybrid of his old outfit, his new outfit, and eyes and tentacles became incorporated.

“Who are you?” Deceit asked, looking between them.

“Virgil.” “Remus.” The two new sides answered at the same time, looking at each other. Virgil and Remus were not functions. Virgil and Remus were  _ names.  _

“Anxiety,” Virgil amended, the world bubbling up as a title rather than a name.

“Intrusive Thoughts,” Remus said. They looked at each other, then Virgil broke the gaze to flee to his room.

His room twisted around him. Black curtains with white spiders zoomed over windows that now appeared. Pale brown carpeting spread around him, and a bed with the same spider pattern on the comforter took the place of his easily-cleaned cot. A clock appeared, and spider webs stretched to and fro around posters that printed into existence in the center of his room and flew to their places. Music pounded through speakers and a giant smile broke out on his face. He was truly calm.

*****

“Paranoia.”

“That’s not my name.”

“Clean up the commons.”

“No.”

“No? What do you mean no?”

“Clean up your own mess.”

“This is  _ my  _ commons.”

“It’s  _ our  _ commons.”

“Oh, do we have a little communist here? Going to go put on Rasputin and angst about capitalism without doing anything to change it?”

“No and no! We are figments in a person’s head. We can’t own anything,” and Virgil teleported to his room, only he appeared in the living room he had watched so many times. Thomas sat on the couch and was fumbling with a remote, trying to turn off the tv where a horror movie had been playing a few seconds ago. Thomas did a full on woman-in-a-horror-movie screech when he saw Virgil.

“Hello.”

“Who are you? Wait, are you like Morality?”

“I don’t know, am I? Maybe I just easily walked into your apartment because you left the door unlocked and are so involved with things that only make you feel bad.”

Thomas shot to his feet and ran to check the front door, which was locked. He came back sheepishly.

“Who are you?”

“The reason you never go to parties where you don’t know the names or intentions of anyone there and anyone could have touched the food and poisoned it.”

“Stop it!” Thomas shrieked, and a man in a blue polo shirt and cardigan popped up.

“Now, remember what I said when you accidentally summoned me the first time? In for four, hold for seven, out for eight. I’m going to count, and you breath with me, okay?”

Virgil felt his nerves multiplying rather than reducing as they usually did when Thomas calmed down.

“Good job! Oh, heya, I didn’t see you there. I’m Morality!”

“I’m Anxiety.”

“Nice to meet you, Anxiety. Now, why don’t you sink back into the Mindscape so I can calm Thomas down.”

“I’m not a child,” Thomas whispered.

“Of course you’re not, Kiddo! I just want to make sure you’re 100% okay before I go back to the Mindscape myself.”

Virgil sunk into his room, making it for real this time as he calmed down. When he decided he was completely calm he made his way downstairs. Deceit was still standing where he had been with the blank look that revealed he was watching Thomas.

“Deceit.”

Deceit’s gaze snapped up, “The commons looks completely clean.”

“You better get cleaning.”

They stood facing each other for a moment.

“Well,” Virgil started and pulled a knife from the table and burying it in Deceit’s heart, “Do you understand now? I am  _ done.  _ I quit. I’m not Paranoia anymore, and you can’t boss me around. I am not bleeding for you.” Then he looked around and sprinted away, his hands trembling more than they had when he had been Paranoia as he wrenched open a door that hadn’t been there before in his haste to get away. He stopped as he looked around the grey space as the dark door disintegrated except for a small window. He looked in to see Deceit getting up. He wasn’t hurt, obviously, since they weren’t physical, but it still helped calm him to see Deceit moving and very much alive. He looked between the light door and the new grey door. He opened the grey door slowly. His footsteps sounded in the empty hallway. A plain brown couch and a tv sat abandoned, and the kitchen in what he guessed was the commons looked like it had never been touched. He went up stairs and found a single door, which, when opened, lead to his room, unchanged. What had he done?


End file.
